(Newser)
–
Archaeologists have found one of the biggest raptors ever, one that used to roam what is now Hell Creek in South Dakota. Hence, the name: Dakotaraptor.Discover reports that this beast was about 16 feet long with sickle-like claws of nearly 10 inches, making it one of the largest raptors known to exist. More formally, it's a dromaeosaurid, but the Lawrence Journal-World out of Kansas provides a more down-to-earth description of these bird relatives: a "massive, freaky-looking carnivorous dinosaur-bird." Researchers found the partial skeleton in what's known as the Hell Creek Formation, rocks rich in fossil specimens, and date it to about 66 million years ago.

"This Cretaceous period raptor would have been lightly built and probably just as agile as the vicious smaller theropods, such as the Velociraptor," says the lead author of the paper in a release from Kansas University. Dakotaraptor would have been too big to fly, but it seems to have had feathers—its forearms had what researchers call "quill knobs" where feathers would be attached. That would make it the largest dinosaur found to date with wings, notes Discover. Another researcher speculates on the wings-but-no-flight quirk: "Either it evolved from an ancestor that could fly but had lost the ability to fly, like an ostrich, or dinosaurs evolved big quill-pen feathers for another reason, such as display or egg brooding." (Scientists had to use unusual means to salvage the skull of a rare baby dinosaur.)

Paleontologists NOT Archaeologists!!!!! Paleontologists study dinosaurs and Archaeologists study people of the past!!!

Chris C. Winkler

Nov 4, 2015 8:14 PM CST

Those must be shitty archaeologists if they were digging for human culture in Hell Creek Formation.

Jay Adams

Nov 4, 2015 8:08 AM CST

I've lost count how many times these scientists pull their theories out of thin air or some other unmentionable place. It seems to be the pattern is "it must have", "it probably was", or in this case in the article "either it evolved from an ancestor or dinosaurs evolved feathers for another reason". Scientists should just stick to Observational and Future Science. Their fallacy-filled Historical Science is full of guesswork, false assumptions, manipulation of facts to fit their theories and really is a religion more than anything.